Surprise: McCain Biggest Beneficiary of Telco/ISP Money.
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUS246040901420091024

New York’s Representative Eric Massa introduced a bill in June that blocked TimeWarner from changing my unlimited bandwidth plan to a 3GB/month plan. If I wanted to keep unlimited access, the bill would have gone up more than 5 times. This bill would allow telecommunications companies to do things like that.

Surprise: Text of the bill is not publicly available yet with people supporting and opposing the bill.

Frankly, the Feds can stay out of the way and I’ll “regulate” with my dollars.

You can’t regulate with your dollars. There’s not enough competition. What the FCC is trying to do is beneficial for all citizens.

I fear the individual’s ability to regulate with his or her dollars won’t do much good in the face of a region’s Internet/cable/land line telephone provider’s ability to regulate with its dollars. Deregulation of cable and the reemergence of Ma Bell has put all media/Internet access into the hands of one or two big companies. In Northern California it’s Comcast and AT&T. Those are the choices, and they both keep insisting that they can regulate traffic however they see fit.

I just don’t see the appeal in trying to stand up to giants like that—alone, with only a few dollars clutched in my hand—yelling, “No!” It is neither romantic nor sound social policy.

It makes especially little sense since the government is, at least technically, required to listen to me and is bound, again technically, by centuries old laws and customs to help ensure my liberty. Comcast and AT&T are under no such obligations.

I’m of two minds on this bill. On the one hand, I generally don’t like regulation. On the other, I agree with ajf that there isn’t enough competition in the ISP space. There’s no reliable way for the consumer to punish the larger ISPs by changing services. Plus, McCain’s relationship with the telcos does not engender in me a lot of confidence in his motivations.

This is a bill to prevent regulation. A lot of people, mostly conservatives, agree that over regulation is bad, but, what doesn’t get the attention it deserves is under regulation. The world of ISPs (internet service providers) is made up of monopolies and oligopolies, and isn’t subject to standard market forces. To stop these ISPs from limiting service and charging high fees requires nudging to keep them from coalescing against the consumer. Currently, ISPs can make certain pages or activities (i.e. torrents) download slower than other sites, except they aren’t allowed to; the FCC stops them. Should ISPs get that right, via deregulation, your internet bill will look like this: http://i7.tinypic.com/5z6vt4n.jpg

It looks a lot like a cable bill.

Certainly over regulation is bad, but so is under regulation. when ISPs are allowed to split the internet into separate pricing groups the ability of the internet to create new sites like google, facebook, and Opencongress will disappear.

Just remember, this bill is from a guy who admitted last year he doesn’t know how to use a computer. So I wonder why he would be interested in internet freedom??? HMMMM, maybe because he is, as another commenter stated “The Biggest Beneficiary of Telco/ISP Money”. How stupid do these people think we are? This bill will go down in flames as fast as the sponsors presidential bid.